Oakland Mayor Thao’s Time-Stamp Issue Now Lawsuit To Void Mayoral Election

Did now Oakland Mayor Thao benefit from a timestamp moving of the goal posts?

During the run up to the November 2022 Mayoral Election, a number of candidates for the same November 2022 Oakland Mayoral Election received the wrong information regarding the date that the candidate signatures were due. Originally, the understanding was that the date was Wednesday, August 17th, 2022 and because Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf was not running for re-election.

But the Oakland City Clerk, Krystal Sams, phone-called candidates and told them the document due date was August 12th. The problem is, many said they got the call from the Oakland City Clerk on the Thursday before the Friday August 12th, 2022 date.

Then it was alleged that a sub-set of mayoral candidates had time stamps marking the moment they turned in their candidate signatures altered to make it look like their submissions were on time, rather than late. At the top of the list was now Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao (and just as she has another controversy regarding Oakland Police Chief LeRonne Armstrong).

The Origin Of The Initial Marleen Sachs Complaint

All of that caused East Bay Lawyer Marleen Sachs to prepare a complaint she planned to file against the Oakland City Clerk’s Office. As Sachs was working on that, the Alameda County Rank Choice Voting problem came to light before Election Day, where the RCV algorythm was found to be faulty – a fact confirmed by the Alameda County Registrar after the election in addition to the fact that Oakland Mayoral Candidates were not informed that the RCV choices were increased from three to five.

Eventually, the Alameda County Board of Supervisors would vote to have the election votes recounted, but that has not happened as of this writing. Now, Sachs has landed The Alameda County Taxpayers Association as co-petitioner and that complaint is a full lawsuit that was filed with the Alameda County Superior Court Friday, February 9th, 2023.

On October 25th, 2022, and before the November 8th, 2022 Election, East Bay Lawyer Marleen Sachs appeared on Zennie62 YouTube to explain the problem and introduce her then-new complaint:

This is a formal complaint alleging possible unprofessional and unethical conduct by the City Clerk’s office in Oakland, election tampering, and possible violations of the Elections Code. I am filing this complaint because I am concerned about transparency and accountability in Oakland.In brief, I have evidence that the City Clerk’s office knowingly and intentionally backdated and misstated the time that official Mayoral candidate documents were filed with the City Clerk’s office on the afternoon of August 12, 2022. Specifically, paperwork that was required by law to be received no later than 5:00 p.m. on that date was received after 5:00 p.m., but was timestamped to make it appear that the materials were received prior to 5:00 p.m. I have spoken to three Mayoral candidates who have informed me that the time indicated on their paperwork is wrong, and that they were actually in the City Clerk’s office at a time very different than that indicated on the time-stamped paperwork. I have also spoken to the Assistant City Clerk, Krystal Sams, who admitted that the paperwork was stamped prior to 5:00 p.m. because it had to be stamped prior to 5:00 p.m., even though it was after 5:00 p.m. During that same conversation, however, Ms. Sams claimed that the time stamping machine was malfunctioning, and that this explained the fact that the timestamp was incorrect. For reasons explained in more detail below, I have reason to question Ms. Sams’ claims that the timestamping machine was malfunctioning.

Here’s the photo that Ms. Sachs says proves the Sheng Thao campaign signature document time stamp is different from when she walked in:

If you look at the photo, the time in the upper left reads “16:50:04” or “4:50:04” yet the document stamp time on the right reads “4:54”: in other words, now-Mayor Thao would have had only four minutes to run to the City Clerk’s Office from the x-ray machines at the 14th Street Entrance to Oakland City Hall, and have her paperwork stamped. But many candidates have explained it takes over 30 minutes to have campaign signature paperwork processed.

Now, Ms. Sachs has teamed with the Alameda County Taxpayers Association to file an actual lawsuit. Here’s what Ms. Sachs wrote as her statement:

According to a writ petition filed in Alameda County today, the election of Mayor Sheng Thao must be set aside and a new election scheduled as soon as possible. Oakland’s City Charter clearly requires that for “rank choice voting” elections, voters must be given the opportunity to rank and choose from as many options as there are candidates, provided that the voting technology permits this. In the November 2022 election, there were 10 mayoral candidates, but voters were inexplicably limited to ranking only five candidates, even though Dominion Voting Systems equipment would have allowed ranking of all 10 candidates. Given the razor thin margin by which Thao allegedly won the election (677 votes), the results of the election clearly could have been different had the City complied with its own Charter.

In addition, the petition alleges that Thao missed the filing deadline on August 12, 2022. Both City and state law required candidates’ paperwork be filed no later than 5:00 p.m. on August 12, 2022. The acting City Clerk stamped multiple candidates’ paperwork with inaccurate times on that date, including Thao’s, and upon questioning, admitted to manually adjusting the time stamp and claiming that the machine was malfunctioning that day. Multiple mayoral candidates confirmed that the time stamps appearing on their paperwork were wrong. Three candidates, including Thao, had their paperwork stamped to make it appear that it was filed prior to 5:00 p.m., when there is other evidence (including interviews with witnesses as well as emails) that it was filed after the deadline. Petitioners Alameda County Taxpayers’ Association and Oakland resident and attorney Marleen Sacks allege that acting City Clerk Krystal Sams tampered with the time stamp and accepted the paperwork late, meaning that Thao should never have appeared on the ballot to begin with. This too would have obviously impacted the outcome of the election.

The lawsuit further alleges that Petitioners filed written complaints with various City officials and demanded an investigation regarding the time stamp issue, both before and after the election. Those City officials inexplicably failed to conduct any investigation, in violation of existing law and City policy. In addition, the City destroyed all video surveillance footage outside the City Clerk’s office from August 12, in violation of state law that requires such footage to be maintained for at least a year. In conducting their own investigation into these issues, Petitioners also learned that the City has paid approximately six million dollars to a technology contractor for video surveillance equipment and services, even though there was no valid contract and no approval by the City Administrator or the City Council for those contracts. Finally, the lawsuit alleges that the City thwarted Petitioners’ attempts to investigate the issues by failing to respond to their Public Records Act requests in a timely manner.

“Election integrity and transparency are of paramount concern here. The City already botched the election by giving candidates the wrong filing deadline in August, and then wrongfully tried to keep a candidate off the ballot, resulting in substantial negative publicity and mistrust. Then the County botched the school board race by using the wrong RCV algorithm. We have been complaining about the issues in our lawsuit for months and trying to get additional information, and in response, the City has been illegally destroying evidence, not responding to public records requests, and has refused to investigate. We finally got the contract with Dominion Voting Systems that makes it clear that their equipment could have handled up to 10 candidates. If voters had been given the number of options that the law requires, and if the City Clerk’s office hadn’t mysteriously altered the time stamps, these things legitimately could have changed the outcome of the election. The City just wanted to bury the issues. We were left with no option but to file suit,” said Sacks.

ACTA and Sacks have an existing lawsuit pending in Alameda County Superior Court regarding the City’s chronic failure to comply with the Public Records Act and illegal contracting. “It is clear that nothing has changed since the election. The City is not committed to accountability or transparency. Our mission is to ensure that changes. We need election integrity, fiscal accountability, and real and meaningful access to information via the Public Records Act. We want Oaklanders to know that the people in City Hall are engaging in multiple illegal acts and trying to cover it up, and we want the people in City Hall to know that we’re not going to tolerate it.”

2022 Oakland Mayoral Candidate Derrick Soo First To Point Out Oakland City Clerk’s Poor Handling Of Candidate Signature Filing Dates

Derrick Soo made this Zennie62 YouTube vlog explaining the problem on August 13th, 2022, months before the November 2022 Oakland Mayoral Election.

Then, as I vlogged on August 16th 2022, Oakland Mayoral Candidate Allyssa Victory and other competitors for the office, expressed anger over the news Mr. Soo first reported:

Here’s Oakland Mayoral Candidate Monesha Carter and Derrick Soo talking about the City Clerk problem at the 26 minute mark of this video:

The date reporting snafu originally led to Allyssa Victory being eliminated from eligibility, causing her to mount a political and legal challenge.

The controversy brought candidates who were kicked off the ballot together, and they met for dinner at Oakland’s famous JONG GA HOUSE:

Ms. Victory won her case, as the Oakland City Attorney allowed her name to go on the Oakland Mayoral Election Ballot. She held a press conference to announce the news:

A Copy Of The Actual Alameda County Taxpayers Association / Marleen Sachs Lawsuit

Here’s the lawsuit Marleen Sachs filed (date stamp not included), and teamed up with the Alameda County Taxpayers Association:

ACTA and Sacks v. City of Oakland Et Al Writ Petition PDF by Zennie Abraham on Scribd

Stay tuned.